A Broken World
by NitrogenFixation
Summary: Innocent people die every day. Today, Peter looks a death not his own in the eye - and the world turns. / AU. Slight tear-jerker. Oneshot.


**A Broken World**

"Miss McGregor?"

36-year-old Lisa McGregor found herself staring into the exhausted brown eyes of a tall man dressed in a suit worthy of an FBI agent. His face was haggard, his lips loose with his weariness, but he still stood tall, shoulders square. He didn't try to smile at her. She felt deep appreciation; she didn't need reassurance. It wouldn't help. She needed the truth.

"I'm Agent Peter Burke," he said factually, turning halfway to start up the stairs. "Please, come with me."

He led her to an office - probably his - with glass walls and a full, cold coffee mug on the desk that said "World's Greatest FBI Agent" and a framed portrait of a beautiful woman - probably his wife. A second picture frame was turned down beside it. The room was otherwise bare of personal affects.

"Agent Burke, please tell me what happened," she requested. "Agent Jones only told me that something had happened to my husband and that you wanted to see me personally." This had to be against protocol. It didn't make sense for her to be taken in simply to be informed that her husband had died, which meant that there was something more to it than that - something involving this agent. The man actually frowned then, his expression not uncaring, but worn. Lisa looked him directly in the eye, feeling tired herself. "He's dead, isn't he." It wasn't a question.

The agent paused. "I'm sorry. Our files say he was on leave from the army... He was a good man, I'm sure."

Lisa took the liberty of sitting down gracefully in the chair opposite of the one that he'd probably be sitting in if he weren't so tense. His eyes clouded over slightly, as if remembering something. He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking at the floor as she looked at her hands. "Yes...he was a good man."

So James had finally gotten himself killed.

"Agent Burke...please tell me how it happened," she requested after a moment. He looked at her, and she was suddenly aware of how hollow his gaze was. He stared at her for a long moment.

He didn't ask if she was sure - as if he understood the want, the desperate _need_, to know. "Sergeant McGregor died to save an undercover agent -" he almost choked on the word "- from a hired hit." Burke paused, his eyes bright. "My partner."

"Was the agent with him when he died?" she asked, sudden desperation interrupting the surreal calm in her. Burke stared at her, his eyes bright with a rush of emotion that she couldn't identify. Irrational feelings surged through her veins in the few seconds of silence.

"Yes," he rasped finally, something new in his voice. The strange desperation calmed, and with weary eyes, she looked at him.

"Can I speak to him?"

Burke's eyes grew stony - not angrily, but guardedly, as if to hold something in. "I'm afraid that won't be possible." His tone was monotonous, emotionless, somehow.

She stared at his hollow gaze for a moment, and his eyes automatically turned to the downturned picture. His eyes grew bright again, and he quickly turned to the window.

"I..." She paused. "Thank you for telling me." There was a beat of silence. "Did he...suffer?"

The agent shifted. "No."

With that, she stood and, with a last look at first the pictures, then Agent Burke, she left him to his peace.

* * *

"El."

His beautiful wife appeared from the kitchen, her face one of weariness. She rushed over to him and wrapped her arms tightly around his torso, resting her head on his shoulder as he hugged her back.

Tears dripped onto her cheek, and she tightened her grip - unbelievably, considering her size and occupation. She maneuvered him to the couch and they sat, still gripping each other for dear life.

"He shouldn't be dead, El...he didn't deserve it...I should've been able to save him...oh, El, the other man, the one who tried to save him, he was a soldier - James McGregor. His death didn't even save Neal...God, _why!"_ he begged desperately, openly crying now. Elizabeth tightened her grip on him again, her own tears falling steadily as Peter succumbed to soft sobs. She didn't quiet him. One of them was shaking - maybe both of them, she didn't know.

"Why..." he repeated more softly as he sobbed, his tense, shiver-wracked body becoming almost limp. He shuddered and leaned on her. She moved his arms from around her and pulled him close next to her, one hand gently brushing back his hair as he leaned against her, and she felt as if she were holding a vulnerable child rather than her strong, level-headed FBI agent husband. She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against the top of his head, not wanting to see his despairing face, his tortured, haunted eyes as the scene of his partner - best friend - _brother_ being shot through the skull played again and again before his eyes.

She did not reassure him. It wasn't okay. Neal was dead. Sergeant James McGregor was dead. The world was still spinning, the people in it going on with their lives, totally unaware that two people who, as far as they were concerned, didn't exist were dead.

The world was broken. It would never _be okay_.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Very short. I know that I left the scenario rather undefined, but does it really matter that much? I wanted to write an aftermath-type story. This is it.

The next thing I post won't be so depressing (I hope). Actually, the next thing I post will probably be in YGO. We'll see how it goes...

Remember to review and tell me what you think, please!

- _Nitro_


End file.
